


The Story of Tonight

by lisachan



Series: The Hamilton college!AU literally no one asked for [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:49:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28014978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan
Summary: The one in which Alexander Hamilton explains his plan to take over and occupy Columbia University to dethrone the current dean, Sir George Hannover, whom he calls King George and whom he blames for having treated unfairly a certain number of students all identifying with various minorities of some kind, all the while trying to convince Aaron Burr, long-time rival and low-key friend, to join in his plan, despite his reservations. Will he manage?
Relationships: Aaron Burr/Alexander Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler (Mentioned), Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens (mentioned)
Series: The Hamilton college!AU literally no one asked for [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2051946
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	The Story of Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, first of all, a disclaimer: this story does not depict any real situation happening at Columbia University that I know of. This is not a political story, this is not a statement of any kind, I just love Hamilton and ship Hamburr with the strength of a thousand suns, and I needed to write a funny, stupid, ridiculous retelling of the original musical plot, with a few twists. That's it, I swear. Also: I'm Italian and I've never been to the USA, I have no direct experience of how colleges and univestities work over there, I did my research but mistakes might be present and I apologize in advance for that.  
> Secondly, yes, this is a series. If you know me, if you've read something else of mine on this website, you know I tend to drag series for a long time, I like to tell stories but I don't like to finish them. So, yeah, this is the first installment in a whole lot, I just don't know when the others are gonna come -- bear with me, please.  
> That said, I hope you enjoy this, and see you soon in the next one ~♥
> 
> (I wrote this story for Lande Di Fandom's [Maritombola #11](https://www.landedifandom.net/maritombola-11/), to fill prompt #63, which was two dialogue lines, specifically: "Who do you think you are?" "I'm the one who's gonna make you change your mind.")

“Alexander?” Aaron squints his eyes, trying to make out his features in the darkness shrouding the dorm hallway.

“Aaron Burr, sir,” the other answers, and Aaron rolls his eyes at the ceiling. Even if he didn’t recognize his tragically familiar silhouette, even if he didn’t recognize that damned nasal voice always apparently on the verge of bursting into tears, he would know for sure the man standing out of his bedroom is Alexander Hamilton, by now. Only he calls him like that.

“Hamilton, for fuck’s sake,” he snorts, “Stop calling me sir. We’re basically the same age.”

“That’s not exactly true, though, is it?”

“Fine, then, even worse, I’m one year younger than you. How is the sir justifiable?”

“I like it a lot? It rhymes with your name?”

“You are fucking weird.”

“I embraced it long ago. Can we talk?”

“No. It’s the middle of the night. There’s only one thing you can do and that’s leave.”

“But it’s important.”

“To you, perhaps.”

“Well, yes. Isn’t it enough?”

“No?”

“Is that a question?”

“Should I slam the door in your face?”

“That is a question.”

“Answer it, please. I cannot wait.”

“Okay, okay…” Alexander chuckles as he puts a hand on the door and another on the doorframe, to make sure Aaron really isn’t gonna shut it on him, “We got off on the wrong foot, here.”

“We got off on the wrong foot since we first met,” Aaron answers with a frown.

Alexander seems to be hurt by those words. “That’s not even true,” he complains in a vaguely whiny tone, “You offered me to sit next to you in the cafeteria, that day.”

“And you then proceeded to mock me together with those three ridiculous idiots, once you met them,” Aaron notes, crossing his arms on his chest. “Now, I want to go back to sleep as soon as possible. What do you need?”

Alexander smiles as though he was expecting Aaron to come to this eventually, and all the chattering they did up to now, all the bickering and the back-and-forth-ing, was just intellectual foreplay to him. Preparation for the real battle.

Aaron and Alexander have been on opposite sides of countless mock trials during classes, and therefore Aaron has had many chances to see Alexander at work. He’s a damn tank when he wants to tackle a topic, he would just drive over everything and everyone to prove his point. He’s the human equivalent of the nuclear bomb during trials, wherever he passes no grass ever grows again.

So Aaron steadies himself and prepares for an attack of humongous proportions.

Which is why he’s left idiotically speechless when Alexander utters a seemingly heartfelt “Burr, you’re a better lawyer than me,” that leaves him completely dumbfounded.

“…okay,” he says, swallowing. The unexpected always left him kind of shaken. Even though he’s been sharing enough classes and – regrettably – free time with Hamilton that he should know, by now, how much of a prominent position the unexpected has in the lives of those who, by accident or wanting, end up gravitating around him.

In the meantime, Alexander goes on to describe in further details what he means. “I know I talk too much. I’m—let’s say not the most diplomatic speaker out there—”

“You are as much of a pain in the ass in court as you are outside of it,” Aaron interjects, trying to stand his ground again.

“Okay. Duly noted. I’m a pain in the ass. You are too, anyway.”

“I don’t deny that. But please, go on, you were telling me how much of a good lawyer I am.”

“I was, actually. You’re right. You are full of flaws, Burr, seriously, so full of flaws I could list them all, naturally, I’m very good at lists, but I’d need an eight-hundred pages tome to do that, still—”

“Alexander.”

“—Still, you are also incredible in court. You’re reasonable, succinct, persuasive. You get straight to the point, people listen to you, though why is unfathomable to me, considering you rarely ever have anything remotely interesting to say—”

“Sometimes I truly struggle to understand if you like me or not, Hamilton.”

“What? Nonsense. I adore you. One can adore someone else while at the same time being very distinctly aware of his flaws.”

“That’s— undoubtedly nice to hear,” Aaron clears his throat and scratches his nape. He would like to be able to say that he’s still sleepy, that standing on this doorstep, listening to this madman, is a pain, and that he can’t wait for this torture to be over, but unfortunately— he cannot. Hamilton has this incredibly annoying quality. The ability to fire something up in your guts with his stupid voice, his stupid speeches. He has the rhetoric refinement of a gorilla shouting at the top of a hill while banging his fists into his chest – but also the same ear-catching quality. He makes a lot of unnecessary noise, but you can’t stop listening to him, no matter how hard you try.

“I’m glad you think so,” Alexander smiles. He has smiles like a child’s, this one. Aaron thinks it unbelievable. Alexander Hamilton is an unbelievable human being. Obnoxious and unbelievable. “Which brings me to my point.”

“Which I am eager to ear, so that I can finally put an end to this misery,” Aaron says, leaning against the doorframe, hoping to sound convincing.

Alexander chuckles shyly. “Okay,” he says, “I’ll try to be brief.”

“And you will fail.”

“Appreciate the attempt,” he clears his throat and he assumes the position Aaron has so often seen him take – squared shoulders, straight back, head slightly tilted upwards, the tip of his nose pointing up. People in football and basketball teams have their positions on the field at the start of the game, martial art players and bowmen have their posture. Hamilton has this. His speaking stance. “You surely have noticed what’s happening around campus,” he starts off. Then he pauses, immediately.

Aaron keeps quiet for a moment, giving him a chance to go on. Then he realizes Hamilton’s waiting for an actual answer from him, and he groans. “No, Alexander. What is happening around campus?”

“What is happening around campus, he asks! Let me describe it for you.”

“You promised you’d be brief.”

“I promised I’d try. And you wisely predicted I’d fail. So there’s that.”

“Please, go on.”

“With pleasure,” Alexander clears his throat again. “You know what happened to Patricia Blake, two weeks ago.”

Aaron immediately frowns, tightening the grip of his crossed arms on his chest, defensively. He doesn’t like to talk about what happened to Patricia. That’s an ugly topic to discuss. The girl was invited to a Pi Kappa Alpha party and the next day she carried herself to the infirmary, shaky and terrified, and said she had been raped. No witnesses, no traces of semen or violence on her, nothing to identify the assailer. She accused a white guy from the frat. Classic rich boy, not particularly bright, not a complete idiot either, with some talent for math and a few awards on his shelf. Everyone said it wasn’t possible. The boy denied it. She had no proof. Her claim was therefore immediately discarded, and the school staff made sure the students knew that was something that didn’t deserve to be discussed any further.

“I know,” Aaron admits, nodding. “What about it?”

“She left.”

Aaron looks up and finds Alexander staring intently at him. “Excuse me?”

“She just left. A few hours ago. I met her while I was on my way up to Eliza’s room in Hartley. She was carrying her suitcase with her— I couldn’t help it. I stopped her and we spoke. She told me she’s terrified, that she isn’t receiving the care she needs. She’s been scarcely able to leave her room at all, constantly having panic attacks, and no one wants to listen to her. Burr— that’s just beyond horrible, don’t you think?”

“Please, stop it with the rhetorical questions,” Aaron answers, tiredly massaging the root of his nose, “Obviously I think it’s a disgrace.”

“Exactly! A disgrace. See, that’s what I meant. You find just the right words, don’t you? That’s what I need.”

“To do _what_ exactly?” he asks.

Alexander seems to be ready to answer, but then he hesitates. He can be raw and unfinished, but his brain connects with his eyes quite well, he can read a face when he wants to. And he knows Aaron is not yet prepared to say yes to whatever proposition he’s about to make. He needs to reinforce his argument a little bit. “I’ll come to that,” he says, as a matter of fact, “First I wanna remind you of Luis Vasquez. You sure remember Patricia but perhaps you don’t remember him.”

Aaron frowns again. “I do remember Luis,” he replies, pretty annoyed by the fact that Alexander would suggest he remembers Patricia because she’s a black woman, while he would forget Luis because he’s latino. “He was arrested on the school grounds. A month ago.”

“Yes! That’s him.”

“He was released, though, pretty soon. I’m friend with a guy who knows him and—”

“Sure, he was released because they didn’t have enough proofs against him,” Alexander nods, “Still, when the authorities suspected someone was selling drugs on campus, who did they target? Luis Vasquez.”

“He had been seen buying many times, Alexander—”

“Yes, and like him hundreds of boys and girls around here, including us—”

“Including _you_ maybe!”

“—but they had to choose one and who did they choose? The latino boy. Now sure, he’s been released, but have you seen him around here?”

“No, Alexander,” Aaron answers nervously, a part of him already suspecting where this is leading, “I haven’t seen him. I’m sure you’re gonna tell me why, so I won’t bother asking.”

“Thanks. He hasn’t come back because he _couldn’t_ come back. He’s been expelled.”

Aaron stops for a second, irritation for being led on subsiding as soon as what Alexander just told him sinks into his consciousness. “But he hasn’t been proven guilty,” he says.

Alexander nods, poignantly. “My point exactly. _King George_ thought a student who got involved with law enforcement, no matter if innocent, could no longer be associated with Columbia.”

“For God’s sake, Alexander,” Aaron groans tiredly, “Stop calling Dean Hannover _King George_ — sometimes, I swear, you make me wonder if you’re actually out there _asking_ for trouble.”

To that, Hamilton does not answer. His eyes stop on Aaron and his lips turn into a thin line cutting the bottom half of his face horizontally, and Aaron immediately knows he hit the spot.

“Alexander,” he says.

“Burr— I mean, look around!”

“Alexander!”

“Catriona Young, chemistry sophomore, she’s been denied a renewal of her scholarship based on the _suspect_ that her uncle could be involved in criminal activities— she’s a black woman too.”

“Alexander, you need to stop.”

“Martin Torricelli, he’s been bullied and abused by almost all professors for his accent, the mockery turned so violent he stopped attending classes, he was denied participating to almost all exam sessions, he had to move to fucking Saint Rose college!”

“Alexander.”

“I could go on!”

“You could, but you won’t!” Aaron finally loses the last, final bit of his shit, and grabs Hamilton by both his shoulders, shaking him hard, “Shut up! Jesus, you’re yelling. It’s _late_. I got your fucking point. You don’t like the turn things are taking around here.”

“You shouldn’t like it either.”

“Maybe I don’t.”

“Well, then, that’s great! That’s exactly what I was hoping for. Can I come in for a second?”

“I would be mad inviting you into my room.”

“I could keep talking from out here,” Hamilton says, and the way he says it makes the words sound like a threat.

Aaron weighs his options, then sighs. “Ten minutes,” he says, removing himself from the door and allowing Alexander to walk in, “That’s all you’ve got. Make it count.”

“Alright,” Hamilton nods. As soon as the door closes, and Aaron and him are alone in Aaron’s bedroom, he places himself in front of him, arms awkwardly rigid down his sides, as though he was steadying himself for a fight, and then he speaks again. “I want to occupy the school grounds.”

Aaron’s eyes open wide as he stares at Hamilton in complete shock. Of the millions senseless things he might’ve expected to hear coming out of that mouth, that didn’t even make the list. “You’re out of your goddamn mind!” he says, throwing his arms up in the air, “No!”

“Hear me out—”

“No way!”

“I have low-key spoken about it with Professor Washington already, we need to overthrow this fucking regime, why should the dean dictate on who can and cannot be in the school based on racial and classist prejudices? Why should he get to decide which cases are worth discussing and solving and which ones don’t even deserve getting acknowledged? Washington agrees with me—”

“Meaning?!” Aaron screeches, shocked at the fact that Hamilton would and could even think about telling one of the most eminent professors of the university that he wants to overrun the school and depose the dean, “Did he tell you to move on with this idiocy?”

“No, he told me to stay put,” Alexander frowns.

Once again, Aaron groans in frustration. “Of course he did, because he knows it would be madness!”

“No, he just told me because he could not tell me otherwise! He can’t condone such a thing, that’d be ridiculous.”

“Then why do _you_ wanna do it?!”

“Because it’s necessary, Burr!” Alexander insists, matter-of-factly.

“This is unbelievable…” Aaron murmurs, pacing the room with one hand on his head, as though it was about to explode, “It’d be physically impossible to take the school anyway. How would you even proceed? Practically speaking! It’s impossible to even think about it! More than thirty-thousand students, almost five thousand employees— we would need an army!”

“That’s why I need you,” Alexander goes on, getting calmer the more agitated Aaron grows, “I need your eloquence. All the students see what’s happening— more than 50% of us identify as people of color. You want an army, Burr? You _have_ one, we just need to help them see the light. Here’s my plan— the Spec.”

“No.”

“Yes. We will write a series of anonymous open letters to the student body, detailing cases of blatant racism and injustice. I asked around and I came up with twenty-five.”

“Twenty— You wouldn’t find twenty-five cases like these in ten years of history!”

“I found twenty-five in the last six months.”

Alexander’s words are followed by a silence that weighs heavily upon Aaron’s conscience. Twenty-five. Twenty-five Patricia Blakes. In the last six months. That’s a heavy truth to confront.

“Have you…” he swallows, “Have you done a background check on—”

“I did. I confirmed them all. And I have a feeling— Burr, if we investigated, we could find more. Hannover’s been Dean for almost eight years now, I found twenty-five cases in six months, imagine what we’d find if we went back a year or two!”

“Hamilton— this makes no sense. Open letters on the Spec— no one would even read ‘em.”

“I disagree.”

“And if it fails?”

“Burr— come on, this school needs it!”

“This plan is a mess!”

“I’m open to suggestions!”

“It could end up amounting to literally nothing!”

“We have to start somewhere!”

“No, no way,” Aaron shakes his head, resolutely, “It’s too risky. If our names came out – and you know they could – that would be the end of our academic career. Possibly our professional lives, even! How do you not see that? You keep putting yourself under the spotlight, barking at every tree casting its shadow over you— you never listened to my advice.”

“Because it’s stupid,” Alexander says bluntly, “Talk less, smile more, don’t let anyone know what you’re against and what you’re for. I can’t even imagine living like that, Burr— you’ve gotta stand up for something. Especially if it’s a cause worth fighting for.”

“The only cause worth fighting for, to me, is mine,” Aaron answers with a frown, “Have a brilliant academic career, graduate early, get the fuck out of here and carve myself a place in the world. That’s not gonna be an easy task already as it is. I don’t see why complicate it further.”

“I— God!” Alexander almost roars, losing his composure altogether, “I swear, I will never understand you. Drop the fucking niceties, this is serious, we’re gonna be lawyers, for Christ’s sake, shouldn’t we care about justice? Equality? Human rights?”

“That’s fucking naïve, Hamilton,” Aaron snorts, crossing his arms over his chest, “What do you think, that you’re gonna waltz out of here and only take just causes, only defending innocents and fighting the fair fight? The institution of the Law isn’t philanthropy. It’s a job like any other, you profit from it, you find convenience in it.”

“That’s bleak,” Alexander lowers his eyes. His posture speaks of surrender, but the tension in his jaws testifies frustration, anger, feelings that are going to haunt him as he walks out of this room. Aaron already knows this isn’t over – still, he has to at least try and put an end to it before it becomes a problem for him and Hamilton alike.

“That’s the harsh reality,” he says sternly, “I won’t be part of this. Find someone else to help you out, or better yet— let it go. That’s gonna be easier for everyone, including you.”

Alexander raises his eyes on him, blinking slowly. “Life’s never been easy for me.”

“And aren’t you tired of it?”

“Of having ideals? Of doing something that matters to someone else other than me? Never.”

“Fine,” Aaron offers him a condescending smile and shrugs, “I’m tired, though. You got your answer, Hamilton.”

“I’m doing this, Burr. With or without you.”

“I’ll see you on the other side of it, then,” he answers with a sense of finality that, for a second, overwhelms them both, as he sees Alexander’s eyes coming alight with a kind of deep disappointment that bothers him more than he thought it would.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” Alexander nods, “Good night, sir.”

*

Alexander’s been playing with the peas rolling around on his plate for almost fifteen minutes, already, when Lafayette decides he can’t take it anymore and finally asks. “Man, come on, tell us what’s going on.”

“Jesus Christ, thank you,” Hercules exhales, slumping against the back of his chair and making it creak a little, “The tension. The tension was killing me.”

John can’t help but laugh a little bit, although softly, as he kicks Alexander lightly underneath the table. “The time has come, bro. Spill the beans. Who rejected you?”

Alexander finally raises his eyes from the plate and stares at his friends, frowning a bit. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Aww!” Hercules yells, throwing both hands up in the air.

“Come on— man!” Lafayette covers his face with both hands, groaning hysterically.

“What?” Alex blinks quickly, “What?!”

“Alex, please,” John laughs again, patting him on his shoulder, “We’ve known you for how long? Five years?”

“Since Princeton!” Hercules points out.

“What does that even me—”

“It means we know your _face_ , bro!” Lafayette doesn’t even let him finish, “And we know what that face means. You tried to get into someone’s panties and you got a no straight in your face!”

Alexander looks at them with his eyes wide open. “Is that how I look like right now…?”

“Yep,” John nods with a friendly smile, “We’re curious, come on. Give us a name.”

“You are dirty, evil motherfuckers,” Alexander comments in complete shock, “First, that is not the case.”

“Come on, Alex.”

“It isn’t!” he insists, “I am, as you know well, loyal to Eliza.”

“Dude.”

“Man!”

“Bro,” John laughs out loud, “Please.”

“Tell me one time I’ve cheated on her!”

“Oh, come on, dude, _her sister_!” Hercules opens his arms wide by the sides of his body.

“Nothing _physical_ ever happened between Angelica and me! Our relationship is purely platonic, and—”

“You better not swear that in front of a jury, bro,” John shakes his head, “What about sweet little Maria Reynolds, then?”

“Oh— jeez, that was a mistake.”

“Does that downgrade it from cheating…?” Lafayette wonders pensively as Hercules shakes his head resolutely by his side. “And what about that weird thing you started with professor Washington’s wi—”

“No,” Alexander stops him resolutely, shaking his head, “We don’t talk about that.”

“Okay, then what about what usually happens between the two of us whenever you drink a little,” John finishes listing, while Alexander blushes furiously.

“That is— another thing entirely, you cannot even— and even if I had cheated on Eliza, I wouldn’t certainly be as ungentlemanly as it would take me to be to come here and give you a name!”

“But you always did in the past,” Lafayette blinks slowly, “Seriously, did we just cross over through the mirror into bizarro world? The world turned upside down!”

“Okay, okay, stop it, you all,” Alexander sighs, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes as he slowly surrenders to the fact that he won’t walk out of this roasting alive until he gives something to his friends. “Okay. You’re right. Someone _did_ bounce me off. But it wasn’t sexual.”

“Oh, now _that’s_ new,” Hercules gets a little closer, almost conspiringly so, showing interest, “Who are we talking about.”

“I’m sure you know Aaron Burr.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Lafayette raises both hands, palms towards Alexander, “How is that not sexual, then?”

Alexander frowns. “What?”

“Come on, Alex, we all noticed the special relationship between you and Mr. Burr.”

“Mulligan, are you even serious right now?”

“You somehow always end up in the same places at the same time…” Lafayette grins.

“That’s merely bad luck!”

“And the kinky undertones make it even funnier,” John chuckles, “Yours gotta be the only S&M relationship where somehow you’re the torturer but he’s still the one who gets to be called Sir.”

“You guys,” Alexander chuckles too, amused by the weirdly well-fitting comparison, “I’ve gotta tell you, you all are much more interested in my sexual life than you should be for ours to be a healthy friendship.”

“It is impossible to have healthy relationships with you, Hamilton, you’re a mad motherfucker,” Lafayette states, nodding his head multiple times, “Now tell us what happened with Mr. Burr.”

“Well— I went to his bedroom last night.”

“See, I knew it was sexual.”

“Lafayette— let me finish. I went to his bedroom to talk to him about the situation with King George and the campus. What I told you about last week, remember?”

“Ah, right!” Lafayette throws both arms up in the air, “The revolution! Whoo!”

“Yeah, okay, maybe let’s not, like, advertise it to the whole school before it’s time…?” John gestures Lafayette to lower his voice, and the boy snickers, nodding dismissively.

“Anyway…” Alexander sighs, finally letting go of his peas to cross his arms on the table and rest his chin upon them, “I told him all about what I found out, about all those discriminated kids, and… I could tell he was moved by it, shit, I thought I had him!”

“Man, Burr doesn’t have a heart, Alex,” Hercules sighs, shaking his head, “He’s always gonna choose convenient over fair.”

“No, I don’t believe that,” Alexander says right away, but then his expression softens and melts into a mask of surrendering disappointment. “Or… at least I didn’t believe that. But he kicked me out, saying this is stupid and dangerous and could potentially jeopardize our professional lives…”

“None of which is actually false,” John notes.

“Okay, but it’s necessary, John,” Alexander insists, and John chuckles, relaxing against the back of the chair.

“You don’t have to convince me, bro, I’m already on board.”

“What I don’t get, though,” Hercules interjects, “Is why you went to him. You already got us, don’t you? We can convince people.”

“Of course, but— I mean, you’re all like I am, outcasts. We have lots of friends and we speak to a good number of people in this institute, but Burr has a different audience, so to speak. And we need those people too. We don’t need an army of underdogs, we need all the students united against this tyranny, this is the only way we’re gonna make it work.”

“Ah, that’s clever,” Lafayette blinks in surprise, “Sometimes, I swear, I give you way less credit than you deserve.”

“Thanks, Laf.”

“No, really,” the French boy nods, “Burr is rich, he never fights with anyone, never disagrees with anyone because… really, no one gets or knows what he thinks or what he cares for, honestly, but still… he has friends we couldn’t even approach.”

“Exactly. He speaks to people I don’t have access to. That I can’t convince, because they won’t listen to me. They will listen to him, though.”

“Yeah, too bad he doesn’t want to preach your verb, man,” Hercules chuckles, crossing his legs and then slapping himself on his knee, “Damn Burr.”

“He’s the worst,” Lafayette shakes his head.

“Seriously, you guys are too hard on him,” Alexander sighs, “But… I am disappointed. I was sure… I was sure I could convince him. He was on the verge of being convinced, I could sense it.”

“Who knows, maybe you surrendered too soon,” John smiles as he leans in to grab his pear juice, which he suckles happily from his straw, “Maybe he _could’ve_ been convinced if you hadn’t given up.”

Alexander frowns, turning towards his friend. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” John shrugs, “You sure you used all your weapons to get him on your side?”

“I told him everything I had to tell him! I prepared my speech and I spoke it to him and he had all the information and—”

“Wait wait wait,” Lafayette waves his hands in the air and shakes his head, “What is Burr always, constantly telling people?”

“Talk less,” John smirks, “Smile more. Did you try that, Alex?”

Alexander blinks slowly, looking at his friends with a lost expression. He is about to answer, really – but then he realizes there is not much to say. So he clears his throat. “Are you suggesting…”

“I’m not suggesting shit,” John laughs, slapping him playfully on his nape, “You do you, Hamilton. I’ve never met anyone you couldn’t turn, so far. Burr’s a though nut to crack, but I trust you.”

While the others slowly go back discussing the rest of their school day, complaining about classes and professors and, naturally, King George, Alexander goes back to his peas. A new plan already forming in his mind.

*

He drops on a chair right in front of where Burr’s sitting behind a desk in the Diamond library, his nose buried in a book about the history of the federal impeachment process while he blindly takes notes on his Macbook with his left hand. “Mr. Burr, sir!”

Aaron is startled by his voice and looks up at him immediately – at first with his eyes wide open in surprise, then with an unforgiving frown. “Hamilton,” he says in a loath-charged voice, “Keep it down. People are trying to study, here.”

“I am trying to study too,” Alexander says. He reaches out and grabs a book from the pile of the student sitting to his right – the poor guy complains, but he ignores him.

Aaron raises his eyebrows. “Since when are you interested in Hindu law and constitution?”

Alexander looks down, noticing the title of the book he stole from the other guy for the first time. “Since now,” he says, opening it up at a random page on the table, “I’m curious about everything surrounding me, especially the things that I do not understand. Which brings me to you.”

“I feared that was where you were going,” Aaron sighs, and slightly pushes his chair back to stand up.

“Wait,” Alexander warns him, “If you go, I’ll just keep following you. Therefore, moving now would be useless and a pointless waste of energy. Sit, I’ll be quick.”

“You never are.”

Alexander smirks. “Some would say that’s one of my best qualities.”

Despite himself, Aaron ends up blushing to the innuendo. “Well, not me,” he says. But he does sit down. “What is it now? Wasn’t I explicit enough last night? Those who supposedly praised you for not being a minute man should’ve also taught you that no means no.”

“Nah— I’m not here to talk about that, man, I got your message loud and clear the first time,” Alexander smiles, “It’s just— I suddenly realized I never treated you like any of the other things I couldn’t understand.”

“Perhaps that is because I am not a thing.”

“No— I mean, yes, but beyond the point. What I mean is that when I come across something – or someone, okay – I cannot understand, I’m used to, you know, try. I get down, buy books on the topic, I study, I educate myself, I understand.”

“Too bad there are no books about me. Yet.”

“Why, you think there will be, at some point…?”

“Hamilton, what do you want?”

“To understand you,” Alexander insists, putting away the Hindu constitutional law book, while the student sitting next to him bitterly thanks him. He leans in, making eye contact with Aaron, and he just does not let him go. “We’ve known each other for years and every time you did or said something that I thought stupid or couldn’t make sense of I always dismissed you like it didn’t matter.”

“But that was fine,” Aaron frowns uncomfortably, “I don’t want anything of mine to matter to you, so keep dismissing me, please. I’m begging you.”

“No, I’m not going to do that anymore,” Alexander shakes his head, “I want to understand you, now. And this is why I’m taking you out for a drink, tonight.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes I am.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“I definitely can, it’s called consent, look it up. It’s a concept lawyers should have sharply clear in their minds so, really, I’m doing you a favor by showing you what it is with a practical example.”

“Burr, sir, come on—”

“Stop calling me sir.”

“What would it cost you? It’s just one drink. One night!”

“Twenty dollars that would be best saved for something else.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know, let’s see. A toilet made of cat fur. Two left shoes. A sweater with no neck hole. Just about anything, really.”

“That hurts, come on,” Alexander frowns a little, resting his shoulders against the back of a chair, “Am I really such a despicable human being that you wouldn’t want to share not even a pint of beer with me?”

The harshness of it, as put down by Hamilton so bluntly, kind of hits him. He doesn’t think _that_ bad about him— he actually does not think bad about Alexander at all. He finds him obnoxious, annoying, an unbearable idealist, sometimes he goes as far as to think him some sort of highly functioning idiot, but that’s just about it, he never pushed the boundaries of his own general distaste for his presence until they melted into proper loathing.

“I mean…” he sighs, and he hates to see the smile opening up on Alexander’s face, signaling that he understood he’s giving him an opening, “I wouldn’t say _that_.”

“Then come drink with me,” Alexander says, smiling brightly, “I promise I won’t push you. I’ll be the best drinking partner.”

“And you won’t bring up Patricia Blake or any other nonsense related to that matter.”

“Alright—”

“Promise, Alexander.”

“I promise, I promise!” Alexander chuckles, “What about The Dead Poet? Sounds good?”

Aaron looks intently at him, wondering if he’s making a mistake he just can’t see the potential damaging consequences of yet. “I guess,” he says.

“Then it’s settled,” Alexander drums his fingers a couple times on the table top, and then stands up, his chair making a screeching noise as its feet get dragged across the marble floor, “I’ll better leave, now. Before they kick me out.”

His self-awareness is ridiculous and, well, yes, funny, and Aaron finds himself chuckling softly. “Yeah, you better,” he agrees with a nod.

Alexander waves him goodbye and disappears out the doors of the building. Aaron looks back down at his book and at his notes, but somehow he doesn’t feel like studying any longer.

*

Aaron couldn’t quite explain why, precisely, but he’s nervous. He feels as though he should be preparing for some sort of siege – better yet, he feels as though he _should have_ prepared for some sort of siege, and foolishly didn’t. he has the strange impression that he’s going to come to regret it, but it’s late to turn around and leave, now. There’s too many people and, most importantly, Hamilton’s already here.

He’s sitting at one of the squared tables near the hollow in the wall stacked with old, dusty books. When Burr takes a couple steps into the place, he immediately stands up and waves his hand in the air, trying to catch his attention and yelling “Mr. Burr, sir!” Aaron waves back at him, if only to make him stop before everybody turn to look at him.

He approaches the table only to find out Alexander has already ordered both food and beverages for them both. There’s a ton of French fries with a variety of sauces scattered in small plastic baskets lined with greaseproof paper, and a large pint of dark Guinness waiting for him already. He sits down in front of the man and raises an eyebrow. “You couldn’t wait for me to be there too?”

“I like to play ahead,” Alexander smirks, “Besides, I was starving and thirsty, I had to do something.” He pauses for a second, then his whole expression changes as he seems to understand he might have done something wrong. “Why, you wanted something else…?”

Aaron considers the possibility of telling him actually, yes, he would’ve preferred tacos and a Smithwick’s. Just to see how his face would change at that, if he’d be disappointed in himself or just frustrated for making a mistake when he’s so clearly hell-bent on playing the perfect host tonight. Then he realizes how much of a pain it would be to keep up such an idiotic confrontation when, honestly, French fries and a Guinness sound perfectly fine to him, right now. So he shakes his head, resting his shoulders against the back of the chair.

“Nah, it’s good,” he says. He holds the beer and lifts the glass towards him, inviting him to cheer, “To understanding?” he tries, remembering the supposed reason why they’re here tonight.

“To understanding,” Alexander smiles brightly as their glasses clink together. Then they both swallow some of their beer, and Aaron surprises himself when he feels the hint of a smile open up on his own lips.

“Man, it’s been a lifetime since I last came here. I think last time was before I even started law school, I was getting ready for my LSATs. I was a trainwreck.”

“What?” Alexander blinks, surprised, “Why?”

“I was sure I wouldn’t make it,” he shrugs, swallowing a couple fries dipped in tomato sauce, “I kept having nightmares about it. I failed and the ghosts of my parents both showed up in my bedroom to curse me. I used to come here to drink myself stupid after a whole day of studying like a madman, just so I could sleep through the night.”

“The ghosts of your…” Alexander leaves the sentence suspended there for a moment as his eyes grow progressively bigger and more aware. Then he swallows and speaks again. “You’re an orphan,” he says, “Of course.”

Aaron arches an eyebrow. “Do I look like it or something?”

“What? No,” Alexander shakes his head and laughs embarrassedly, “It’s just— I’m an orphan too.”

“Ah,” Aaron gives in to a bitter smile, “Now you’re gonna say that that’s why we’re connected.”

“Are we connected?”

“Hate is as strong a connection as love is, I suppose.”

“You hate me, now?”

“Despise?”

“You break my heart with every word you say.”

Aaron laughs and drinks some more, shaking his head. “Kidding,” he admits, “But please, honestly, don’t come up with bullshit such as that since we both lost our parents then somehow we should feel closer or anything of the likes, people who link themselves to others through life tragedies make me feel uneasy.”

Alexander laughs too, settling back against the little bench he’s sitting upon. “I wouldn’t. I know what you mean, I don’t like that kind of forcing either.”

“You like other kinds of forcing.”

Alexander plays shocked, placing a hand on his chest. “Never! How dare you.”

“You forced me here tonight,” Aaron answers with a grin.

“A-ha, that’s where you’re wrong,” Alexander waves his index finger in front of his face, “I’m good at interpreting what people really want, and I give them that. You really wanted to come out here tonight, and therefore I proceeded to ignore your denials until you surrendered to your true desires.”

“Okay, but don’t ever use that argument in court, I beg you.”

Alexander laughs, shrugging lightly. “No, but really. I know what it means to… feel that kind of pressure. When my mother died, I was left completely alone. I moved in with a cousin and— well, he wasn’t in the picture much but—”

“What do you mean _he wasn’t in the picture much_?”

“Ah, he offed himself,” Alexander shrugs again, and looks away as Aaron’s eyes grow wide as rice bowls.

“Hamilton, what the fuck?” he utters breathlessly. 

Alexander shrugs a third time, stubbornly offering his best what-can-I-do-about-it attitude to the universe. “He wasn’t right in the head,” he explains, “I imagine having to take care of two children couldn’t have helped. My brother and I were a handful.”

“Still, that’s no justification for—”

“You can’t govern people’s pain, Burr,” Alexander interrupts him with a meek smile, “He couldn’t deal. I ended up in the system. I spent the rest of my childhood and the entirety of my adolescence feeling just…” he sighs deeply, “So fucking cheated, you know? Like, from life in general. You’re born and raised with a sense of possibility, you know, the promise that you can be great, and then shit happens and you’re just… alone.”

Aaron looks down uneasily. He drinks some beer, but the taste turns sour on his tongue. Yet, he drinks more.

He thinks about his parents. The mom and dad he never really knew, never spoke with. Faces he’s come to know only in pictures and in the tales his uncle spun for him and Sally came bedtime, to give them something to comfort each other with through the night. He used to sleep with his sister, back then, in the same bed, under the same covers, clinging to one another, but it never helped with the loneliness. He felt it, back then, as a genetic character inscribed in his DNA. Sometimes he still feels like that.

“Yeah,” he admits in a low voice, “I know.”

“Yeah,” Alexander swallows some more beer, his pint half empty already. None of them ate anything yet, Aaron kind of doubts they will, which is worrying. “I grew up with that. My brother left earlier than I did, he went off to college, we never had a real connection. I was left with such a sense of—”

“Inadequacy.”

Alexander holds his breath for a moment. Then he slowly nods. “…yes,” he admits with a weak smile, “You really do find the right words, don’t you? Inadequacy. And a desire for revenge that could only be fulfilled by becoming the best. At anything, you know. Everything. Just to be able to say see?, I didn’t deserve that shit. And also, see?, I fucking survived that.”

Despite himself, Aaron chuckles softly. “I get that,” he nods. “My uncle— he took me and my sister in when my parents died. He always told me they had only one wish for me, and it was that I graduated as soon as I could and in the shortest possible time. My mother, apparently, made him promise he’d see to that, on her deathbed.”

“What kind of a fucking dying wish is that even?”

“Fuck if I know,” Aaron laughs, immediately followed by Alexander, “But that’s what she wanted. That’s what they both wanted. And— to me, it was doing it, or die trying.”

Alexander offers him an understanding smile, as he keeps drinking. “You felt their expectations, didn’t you?” he asks, “I felt my mom’s. I didn’t even know if that was what she wanted for me, really, but I felt it. Weighing on me.” He looks down for a moment, his eyes, usually always shiny and clear, clouding up a bit. “Crushing me, at times.”

Aaron would like to avoid it, but he feels compelled to nod. How many times throughout his life has he felt like that? When he was a child and then when he started growing up, trying to find his own path in life. He has a picture of his parents, it’s a Christmas picture. He’s in there too, together with Sally, of course. Sally’s smiling at the camera, he’s so young he didn’t even know what to do, and he’s looking into the void, somewhere, he imagines, off on the left of the photographer, and his mother is holding him, and his father’s got an arm around his mother’s shoulders and a hand on Sally’s head. How many times has he seen his parents’ smiles, straight out of this picture, turn into disappointed grimaces, angry frowns? How many times has he imagined voices he doesn’t even know the ring of, echoing in his ears, telling him what he was doing wasn’t enough, that they expected better of him, more, that they wanted him smarter, stronger, more able to fend for himself, capable to overcome all adversities and elevate himself above everyone else?

The nights he spent awake in his room, studying relentlessly.

To make a couple ghosts happy.

He reaches out for his pint and leans in, making it clink against Alexander’s. “To parents’ expectations, and fulfilling them,” he says.

Alexander grins and raises his glass. “And overcoming them, when necessary,” he adds.

Aaron nods. They both drink.

They both get four more pints each.

*

They can’t even walk straight when they get back to the dorm. They keep leaning against one another, keeping each other up. Alexander offered to escort Aaron to his room first, but it’s not like he’s any more sober than Aaron is – they’re both trainwrecks. They keep laughing, also, and Aaron has no idea what’s so funny. He asked Alexander a couple times on the way over there, what’s so funny, Hamilton?, but Alexander was laughing so hard he couldn’t even answer, which made Aaron laugh even more.

Alex laughs like a kid, that’s what Aaron can’t stop thinking about. There’s a childish undertone in his voice and his laughter is the culmination of that, the sublimation of all his cunning innocence and of that obnoxious cleverness that makes him look and sound much younger than he truly is, all the time. 

Aaron feels lighter, laughing with him. He feels younger too. The weight of the years lifted off his shoulders.

He knows it’s a moment, it’ll pass by tomorrow morning, when, hungover and sick to his stomach, he’ll regret having drank so much, and having spent so much time with such a confusing person. But right now? Yeah, right now he feels fine. More than fine, actually. Pretty good. Which, really, never happens to him.

They get to the room and Aaron almost trips and ends up slamming against his door, his hands, falling flat and open against the wooden surface, producing a banging sound that echoes through the silent, still air of the hallway. Alexander shushes him as though he had power over how loud that bang was, but his shushing makes no sense, because he keeps laughing like a madman. So Aaron shushes him back, and Alex laughs. And he laughs too. And there’s absolute thoughtlessness in it, an utter disregard of what it is they should be supposed to do in a situation such as this – try and get a hold of themselves, clear their throats, say goodbye. Try and forget this stupid night ever happened.

Aaron finds himself not caring one bit about all that. And he’s loving it.

“It was nice,” Alexander comments, leaning against the wall while Aaron tries his best to remember where the fuck he left his keys. Could he have forgotten them at the Dead Poet? Could he have been such an idiot? “Wasn’t it nice, sir?”

“Alex— stop calling me sir,” Aaron groans, sticking his hands in his jacket’s pockets and fishing for keys he cannot found. 

Alexander seems to pause for a moment. There’s silence – uncanny, whenever he’s around. In the sudden quiet, Aaron can hear the rustling sounds his own fingers produce while rummaging blindly at the bottom of his pockets. “I don’t think you’ve ever called me that,” he says.

Aaron stops trying to search for keys that apparently don’t exist. He’ll sleep on the carpeted floor of the hallway, tonight, it’s decided. It takes too much effort to keep scavenging for them, he feels dizzy and his head’s spinning, and Alexander’s voice right now sounded deeper than it usually would, and more intense than it ever should.

He turns towards him and finds him looking back at him, those huge, rounded brown eyes fixed intensely on him. “Can’t be,” he says, shaking his head, “Must’ve happened at some point over the last, what, three years?”

“No,” Alexander shakes his head confidently, “I’d remember.”

Aaron snickers, hands on his hips, tilting his head. “Seriously,” he taunts him, “How would you remember three years of history so clearly as to say that I _surely_ never called you Alex since we first met?”

Once again, Alexander takes his time before he answers. He just stares at Aaron’s face for the longest time, like going through some virtual archive of him in his mind, and Aaron feels warm for a second, and then itchy all over.

“I’d remember,” he just repeats then. His voice has a weight Aaron can’t explain but can definitely feel. He swallows, the weightlessness of a few minutes before already gone.

“… I think we better call it a night,” he says, “Before things get awkward.”

Alexander frowns lightly, getting a little closer. “Why do you say that?” he asks, his voice manages to sound at the same time innocent and misleading. Like he was trying to divert his attention from a hole he just dug right in front of him, while at the same time believing in all honesty that for him to fall into that hole would be a blessing, and therefore leading him right towards it. 

“Alex, come on,” Aaron groans, looking away, “You said it yourself, it was nice. Let’s not ruin it.”

“I don’t wanna ruin it.”

“Then don’t act stupid. You say goodnight, I say goodnight, we have a nice night’s sleep. Tomorrow morning we wake up and it’s all back to normal, I’ll keep avoiding you in class, you’ll keep trying to pick fights with me, we’ll bicker every now and then. It’ll be nice. Business as usual.”

“What if I don’t want things to go back to the way they were before?”

“Alexander,” Aaron closes his eyes and inhales deeply. Then he exhales weakly. “Be sensible. We’re both drunk and you don’t want to complicate this.”

“I don’t care if it’s complicated, I care that it feels good,” Alexander says stubbornly. The words give Aaron an inevitable shiver. “It felt good…” Hamilton adds, his voice sounding, for the first time, if not uncertain, at least not smug. Honest. Bare. “Tonight, I mean. Spending time together. Talking like normal people instead of barking at each other for… man, I can’t even remember why we keep fighting all the time. Aren’t you tired of it?”

Up to three hours ago, Aaron would’ve been able to list precisely all the reasons why Alexander and him keep fighting. He would also have been able to explain specifically why he wasn’t and could never be tired of fighting with him – against him. Now, though? The reasons seem blurry. And he’s not tired – he’s exhausted.

“You only say that ‘cause you’re drunk, Hamilton,” he tries to explain him with a sigh, “You don’t _really_ wanna change things between us. We spent time together and now you feel connected to me because you’re like a three year old child, you’d feel connected to a mango if you sat down looking at it long enough.”

“That’s not true,” Alexander shakes his head and insists, “We’re more similar than you wanna admit. Our past—”

“Please don’t.”

“No.” Alexander takes a deep breath and moves closer. Aaron tries to back off, but the door stops him. He flattens himself against it – tries to act as though he wasn’t running. But he is, and faking is harder now that he’s drunk. “I’m not gonna give you a load of crap about connections and being destined or something because we both had losses in our lives when we were children—”

“Alex—”

“But you _get it_ , Burr,” Alexander puts his hands on Aaron’s shoulders and squeezes them, pressing him heavily against the door, cutting his breath off – probably without even wanting to. “You get it. We were sitting in that bar drinking beer for hours and speaking with you felt like speaking to myself. There was an understanding within you— I haven’t found it anywhere else yet.”

“Not even with the Schuyler girl?” Aaron tries. It’s a last defense, he knows that. Alexander’s proximity speaks of a silent request that Aaron must make sure Alexander never voices, because voicing it would make it real and if it was real – who knows how Aaron would answer it. So he brings the girlfriend up. He reminds Hamilton that he does indeed have a girlfriend. Hoping that’d be enough to make him back off.

But it isn’t – obviously. That’s Alexander Hamilton. He never backs off.

“Not even with Eliza,” he says, matter-of-factly. His eyes never leave Aaron’s. “I love Eliza and she loves me. But she’s never been through what I went through— what _we_ went through. She accepts me. She can’t understand me. I would never want her to understand me.”

“Alexander— stop it.” Aaron grabs Alexander’s wrists, tries to make him let go, “What do you want from me?”

There’s another silence. It’s heavy, filled with anticipation, confusion, anxiety. “Let me in,” Alexander finally says. Aaron feels the earth shiver underneath his feet. 

“Are you completely out of your fucking mind—”

“No.” Alexander throws the word in his face without second thoughts. His certainty lets Aaron know he won’t be bullshitted on the point. “I…” his voice turns softer, his expression more mellow. Aaron doesn’t know where rhetoric ends and honesty begins. “I’m not asking for anything. I don’t want anything from you, I swear. Just a little bit more time together.”

“And it has to be now?” Aaron’s voice falters a little. He’s worse than him at this. “Now that neither of us is in his right mind?”

Alexander swallows. Aaron feels the tension. He feels it grow, he watches it grow, and then he also watches it explode as Alexander closes the distance between them and presses his lips against his own.

He tastes salty and bitter. Like something that would be better left untouched.

He retreats and Aaron misses the taste already. Things that are better left untouched are the ones you miss the most once you’ve had them and they’ve been taken away from you.

Alexander whispers on his lips. “I’m in my right mind.”

Aaron swallows hard and breathes out uncertainly. “I can’t find my keys,” he says. He feels like an idiot.

Alexander smiles a little, then unapologetically slips his hand in the back pocket of Aaron’s pants. He emerges with the keys to his bedroom, he lets them dangle in front of Aaron’s face.

“Will you let me in now?” he asks.

Aaron tightens his lips in such a thin line they almost disappear off his face.

He should say no.

He does not say no.

*

Alexander kisses like he does everything else in his life, messily, carelessly. He’s intrusive and demanding and Aaron struggles to keep up with him. He’s too drunk to focus on anything that isn’t the tingling sensation passing through him as Alexander pushes him into the room and towards the bed, but he tries his best. He holds onto him, tries to get on top of the kiss, tries to drive it, but Alexander’s pace is relentless, he wastes no time. There’s a hunger at the bottom of him that makes him just want to feed, and Aaron’s being eaten up, now, and it feels overwhelming and dizzying and fucking good.

He falls on his back on the bed, arms spread, lips on fire, and Alexander climbs on the bed with him and pins him down, kissing him again, and Aaron relinquishes control, something he’s never done before, and lets himself fall into the abyss of uncertainty that putting the reins in Alexander’s hands is. It’s a frightening experience – he doesn’t know what to expect, can’t imagine what Alexander will do, can’t predict him in any way, and yet, at the same time, it is oddly satisfying, relieving, even, to just sit back and take it, let Alexander lead. He seems to know where he’s going. And Aaron, surprisingly enough, finds himself trusting him.

“You’ve…” he gasps when Alexander straddles him and starts fumbling with his belt, “You’ve done this before.” He doesn’t feel the need to turn it into a question – after all, it isn’t. He’s sure of it.

“Kinda,” Alexander admits, finally unbuckling his belt and then moving on to his button and zipper, “I’ve messed around with boys before.”

“Boys?”

“Boy. _A_ boy.”

“Laurens, right?”

Alexander stops and looks down at him, his eyes wide open. “How do you…?”

“I’m a good observer. Which is to say I have eyes.” Aaron immediately puts his hands on Alexander’s, stopping him. He swallows, looking up at him and trying not to let out how embarrassed he actually is. “I’ve never done this before,” he says in a shallow breath, panting softly.

Alexander arches an eyebrow and then frowns a little. “So…?”

“So I don’t know—”

“Mr. Burr, sir, I’m not gonna run around the college spreading gossip about this, okay? And I’m not gonna tell anyone that you’re a virgin or whatever— we’re not twelve.”

“Okay, okay, Jesus— could you stop calling me _sir_ at least now?”

Alexander grins, leaning in on him. “It’s kinda sexy, though, isn’t it? Sir?” he says, speaking on his lips.

Aaron finds himself parting his own, inviting a kiss that Hamilton promptly gives. “Really?”

Alexander chuckles and finally unbuttons his pants, pushing them down a little. “We don’t have to explore that concept right now, though, Burr. Might be a little too advanced for present us.”

Aaron wonders briefly about future them, then, but he’s wise enough to put a stop to it, closing his eyes and clearing his mind of all thoughts when he feels Alexander’s hand sneak inside his pants. He lets out a subtle moan, as though he didn’t want to risk anyone hearing them, and in response to that Alexander squeezes him a little harder. “Nh— slow down,” Aaron breathes out heavily, resting a hand on Alexander’s wrist, “Are you running out of time or something?”

“Sorry,” Alexander laughs softly, his lips pressed hard against Aaron’s neck. His breath is warm and pleasant on Aaron’s hot skin. As he swallows, for the first time Aaron wishes Alexander would talk more. “I got carried away. You’re fucking hard.”

“Yeah, that happens in situations like these.”

“It’s kind of rewarding.”

“Jesus, you’re insecure.”

“Not normally,” Alex chuckles again, “You though… I wasn’t sure about you.”

Aaron looks up at him, licking his lips. Alexander’s fingers, tightened up around his cock, feel warm and just a little calloused. He thrusts up lightly against them, sliding in the nice tight tunnel they make for him. “You weren’t sure you’d manage to get me hard…?”

“I…” Alexander swallows heavily, slightly tightening the grip of his fingers around him, “I wasn’t sure I’d get through to you. There was… a distance I thought I felt…”

“Do you still feel it?” Aaron asks. Despite the darkness of the room, his eyes find Alex’s, and they stay connected.

Alex shakes his head, slowly. His hand starts moving. Up and down, up and down. Aaron closes his eyes and parts his lips, and the moan escaping his throat is raw and deep, it calls Alexander close, and he’s not surprised when Alex leans in on him and kisses him again, harder, this time, pinning him down on the mattress.

Aaron feels like he should ask Hamilton what it is exactly that he wants to do now, so that at least he could prepare, but something stops him. Part of that is that he’s not sure Alex knows himself what it is he’s gonna do – he moves in a frenzy, driven by blind hunger, by this connection, this thread that they’ve found tying them, and that doesn’t originate from their shared trauma or from their similarities, or their differences, for that matter, but from something else entirely that Aaron cannot really point out right now. The other part is just him not wanting to know, though. Half of him doesn’t want to be prepared, half of him is scared he’d clam up if Alexander told him what he was going to do.

And he doesn’t wanna clam up. He wants to open.

So he forces himself not to ask. He lets the alcohol running through his body take the lead, he relaxes underneath Alexander’s body, underneath his hands, he gives in to the tingling sensation that overtakes him when Alexander slides down his body and, surprisingly but after all not so much, takes him in his mouth, blowing him. He arches his back, thrusts his cock past his lips, tightened in a perfect o around his shaft, and he abandon himself to pleasure – he moans, throws his head back, opens his mouth and groans and grunts, and then Alexander suddenly stops blowing him and climbs back up his body, panting lightly, hungry lips trying to pry his open again. “Do you want me to finish you like that?” he asks in between heavy breaths, while Aaron grinds up against him in frustration, “Please tell me you don’t,” he adds in a short whine.

Aaron actually laughs and shakes his head. “Will you be careful, though? It’s my first time.”

“Mine too,” Alexander admits, feverishly getting rid of his own pants and underpants, “Next time we switch, I promise.”

Aaron laughs again, his breath short and shallow. “Don’t think about that, now,” he says, finding himself parting his legs for Alexander, moving on instinct and intuition, “Just think about now, now.”

Alexander swallows – Aaron can see the light in his eyes switch as he pushes all thoughts out of his mind to concentrate on him and him alone.

It is the first time Aaron finds himself reflected in the eyes of someone else and only sees himself. He feels his chest tighten at the thought, as though his heart had swelled so much it couldn’t fit in his ribcage anymore.

It’s just a moment – a suffocating, blissful moment –, then Alexander leans in on him, kisses him voraciously, bites at his bottom lip and sucks it into his mouth. Aaron closes his eyes and grinds up against him, horny and hot, his body aching for something he doesn’t know and cannot describe.

When he feels Alexander press against himself, the friction just barely dampened down by the lubed condom between them, it’s all pain, it’s all fear. He sinks his nails into Alexander’s back and scratches, Alex arches on top of him, hisses, then calls his name with a shaky voice. As though following a command, Aaron’s body opens up, gives in entirely, and Alexander slides inside him, and it’s still pain, it’s still fear, and it’s also glorious.

“Shit— shit,” he gasps, clinging to him, “Go slow.”

“I don’t know how to,” Alexander breathes out heavily against Aaron’s neck, his voice, like waves, crashing on his skin. His hips move on their own, Aaron can feel him slide out and then back in, he hears the sound, he feels himself stretch, and it’s embarrassing, and hard, and he borderline hates it, and then Alexander lets out the smallest gasp and, “God, you feel good,” he says. And it’s not like the pain disappears, it’s just that it doesn’t matter anymore.

Aaron has no idea what he’s doing anymore. He writhes and wiggles underneath Alexander, and as the pain subsides, his body getting used to the intrusion, some sort of strange pleasure takes hold of him, and on top of that there’s a feeling of closeness, intimacy, that just overwhelms him.

Whatever happens tomorrow, whatever happens in the future between them, for this single moment of intense proximity, it was all worth it.

When it’s over, Alexander slides out of him carefully and sits on the edge of the bed, panting. Aaron feels sticky and embarrassed, and he wants to cover himself up, but he’s dirty with come and he doesn’t wanna stain the blanket. So he just lies there, motionless, biting at the inside of his cheek. Alexander swallows and stands up. The bed feels suddenly different without his weight on top of it. He walks barefoot across the room, turns the light of the bathroom on and walks into it without closing the door. Aaron watches him wash up from the bed, the silence is getting heavier, he doesn’t like this. He wishes he could just snap his fingers and make Alex disappear – how do people survive these awkward moments after sex and before sleeping? He has no idea.

When Alex comes back into the bedroom, Aaron forces himself to look away, just to avoid crossing eyes with him, until the mattress shifts, welcoming his weight again. Aaron turns back and finds Alexander sitting next to him, smiling, reaching out with a tissue that he uses to wipe Aaron’s stomach clean. “Oh,” he says, “Is that something— I mean, I can do it,” he says, trying to take the tissue from Alex’s hands.

“It’s okay,” Hamilton chuckles, “I don’t mind.”

Aaron swallows, not knowing what else to say. He lets Alexander finish his work, and then, once he’s finally clean, he pulls the blanket up, covering himself and, incidentally, Alexander too.

“You can stay, if you want,” he says, mimicking an ease he doesn’t truly feel in the hopes that if he pretends hard enough the lie’s going to become truth.

“Thanks,” Hamilton answers. He doesn’t seem to notice Aaron’s awkwardness as he settles next to him under the covers. He crosses his arms behind his head, taking up much more space than he should be allowed in Aaron’s tiny bed, and then he chuckles, staring at the ceiling.

“What?” Aaron asks.

Alexander shrugs. “I was just thinking my friends already believed we were in some sort of weirdly sexual relationship, even before this. They’re gonna freak when I tell them.”

“They would freak _if_ you told them, which you won’t do.”

“What?” Alexander turns to look at him, frowning, “Why? Are you ashamed of this?”

“Yes?”

“Are you asking me?”

“No. Yes, I’m ashamed of this. This was random and ridiculous, two things I do not do.”

“We’re all random and ridiculous at various times in our life, you should embrace it,” Alexander shrugs, “And you should embrace what we did tonight too. It was nice, I don’t regret it.”

“You’re drunk,” Aaron groans, massaging his tired eyes, “You’ll regret it in the morning, once you’re sober.”

“No,” Alexander speaks and, once again, his voice sounds heavy, and a little hard to bear. “I won’t.”

The certainty in his voice speaks of a kind of clarity, a kind of self-honesty, that Aaron just isn’t prepared to battle with. He looks at the outline of Alexander’s face, barely visible in the darkness of the room, and he can see that this man just does not falter, ever. He doesn’t have moments of weakness, he’s not ever confused. He sees a path ahead of himself and he follows it, and when the path disappears deep in the woods he just creates it. That’s the core of Alexander Hamilton, Aaron finally sees it, and he can also see how dangerous he is, how dangerous such a militantly straightforward person could be for someone like him, who’s built his entire existence upon the concept of waiting behind the lines for something to happen, to offer him an easy way towards his targets.

As he closes his eyes and slowly falls, asleep, Aaron takes a mental note of that and promises himself, no matter what happens, he won’t let himself be involved in anything Alexander might ever want to do.

*

When he wakes up in the morning, Aaron is alone. It’s disappointing, on one side, on the other very comforting. Last night was awkward enough without adding the additional layer of discomfort that would’ve surely come by waking up cramped together in a small bed, knees and elbows poking out and sticking in everywhere, drool down their chins, gunk in their eyes, bad morning breath and so on.

He has no idea when Alexander left, but he’s not in the room, not even in the toilet. He picked up all his clothes and there’s no trace of him left in the room, as though he was never there in the first place.

Maybe, Aaron thinks with a sigh as he turns on his back and sticks his arms underneath his pillow to stretch, he merely dreamed of him. Or, well, nightmared of him.

But then he feels something underneath the pillow, a piece pf paper folded multiple times, and when he pulls it out of there to look at it he’s not surprised to find it covered, literally covered, in Hamilton’s messy handwriting. “Jesus…” he groans, picking the note up and unfolding it. Both sides of the paper have been covered in writing. He can just imagine Hamilton waking up, getting dressed, waiting around for him to wake up for a few minutes, then ripping a page out of his notebook on the desk and writing like a madman, like tomorrow won’t arrive.

_”Well, good morning.  
I should preface this note by saying that I have no idea how to pull this off, I have never in my life written a note for a lover while watching him sleep. You look quite nice when you’re asleep, I mean, you look quite nice when you’re awake too, but when you’re awake you speak, and when you speak I never know if you’re gonna say something that’s gonna get on my nerves, and then you usually do, and for a second I find you so very annoying I wish you never talked in the first place, and that does not feel good, ‘cause I pride myself to be a very tolerant person, and sometimes you make me very intolerant, or at least you did, in the past. I don’t know if it’s gonna happen again.  
See, something changed last night, in the way I see you. No, it’s not because we had sex. I mean, something might have changed again in my perception after we had sex, but something else had changed before. I believe I’ve caught a glimpse of your soul last night, while we drank together, and it is a nice soul, Burr. Intelligent and wise. You’re prudent, and you’re cautious, you’re kind of an opportunist, but you’re skilled with words, you’re sensitive, and Burr, you’ve got so much world inside of you, so many feelings.  
Those few hours we’ve been together we’ve talked about parents, loss, trauma, we’ve talked about pressure and letting go of it, we’ve talked about pain, school, goals, we’ve talked about ghosts and shitty families, and beautiful families, we’ve talked about making it, about showing the world what we’re capable of, and we could do so much, Aaron, you and me, if we put our minds to it, if we worked on it, if we could just find a cause that’s worth it, if you could just see…  
I believe I got it, Burr, I have that cause. These kids, these mistreated, cheated kids that have been leaving us without us even noticing, pushed out of school by a king that does not see them, does not value them, does not even intend to give them an opportunity, they’re like us, we just got luckier. They deserve our help, they deserve us taking charge of this place, make some real change. This is a war worth fighting, and I wanna fight it by your side.  
Meet me in the cafeteria as soon as you read this. I’ll be having breakfast, and we should talk. I’ll be waiting for you.  
I have the honor to be your obedient servant,_

_A. Ham_

_PS: The sex was great too, we should do it again soon! xoxo”_

Aaron stares at that last line, narrowing his eyes. He growls softly and crumples the piece of paper in a ball in his palm, then throws it away, aiming for the bin half-hidden underneath his desk. He misses it, and that makes him growl again. Then, he huffs and stands up, walking to the bathroom to shower and get ready for classes.

Before walking out of the room, he picks the crumpled piece of paper from the floor and puts it in his pocket.

*

He finds Hamilton in the cafeteria, as he wrote in the note, and he is disappointed but not surprised to see that he’s not alone. He’s got Elizabeth Schuyler sitting on his lap while her sister Angelica stands tall behind them, her long curly hair held in cornrows sticking to her head and then free to flow down her shoulders and back. Eliza’s less fierce, all dressed in pastel green, her long dark hair tied up in a loose ponytail sliding off her left shoulder. Around them, Mulligan, Lafayette and, of course, Laurens, all sitting at the same table, having an irritatingly loud breakfast.

Aaron both envies Alexander for his circle of friends and finds the whole thing obnoxious. This group of people barely ever separate, and Aaron wonders how pleasant can it truly be not ever having a moment of quiet solitude to think. Perhaps that’s why Hamilton always seems so blatantly stupid, that’s just too much noise around him all the time, he just cannot think. This would explain why he didn’t seem like an idiot last night.

Aaron has no beef with the Schuyler sisters, they’re smart girls, powerful family too, he doesn’t want to barge in until they’re there, so he waits for the girls to leave before finally approaching the table. He does that as aggressively as he can without looking like an imbecile, crossing his arms on his chest and looking at the group with annoyed eyes.

“I see the whole gang is here,” he says, his words loud enough for all to hear but clearly aimed at Hamilton.

“Well, if it isn’t Aaron Burr, sir!” Alexander happily shouts, standing up and walking towards him. “I didn’t think that you would make it.”

“I was under the impression I’d find you here alone,” Aaron goes on with the same contemptuous tone, ignoring Alexander’s cheerfulness. “You said you wanted to talk?”

“I’m betting nothing you’d have to discuss with Alexander would need to be discussed without us,” Lafayette interjects with a grin.

“Yeah, we’re all ears, Burr,” Mulligan adds.

“Yep,” Laurens concludes the triad, “Drop some knowledge, Mr. Burr.”

Aaron looks at the three of them, slowly raising an eyebrow. This was a mistake, it’s clear now. He turns back towards Hamilton. “I should go,” he says, and he can’t say he doesn’t feel somewhat flattered when, upon hearing his words, Alexander low-key panics a little.

“What?!” he spits out, “No, these guys should go.”

“What? No!” Lafayette yells, outraged.

“Leave us alone, guys, please.”

“Man!” Mulligan throws his arms up in the air and looks at Hamilton as though the man was about to deny him a show he had been anticipating for months, which, judging by what Alexander told him in bed last night, that these three idiots believe they’re doing something on a regular basis, might as well be true.

“Seriously,” Alexander stands his ground, searching for John Laurens’ eyes, trying to get the most reasonable of the group to lead the others away, “Burr and I have something private to discuss. I’ll catch up with you in class.”

“But I haven’t finished my eggs!”

Laurens stands up, dragging the chair against the floor. He’s smiling, but even Aaron who doesn’t know him can sense there’s something dangerous to his smile, especially as it slowly turns into a grin. That’s a smile that promises future hell to pay, and it’s all for Hamilton. Aaron doesn’t wanna know the details, but he has nothing against these guys roasting Hamilton after they’ve done talking, as long as Hamilton plays by the rules and doesn’t tell them everything. “Let’s go, guys,” he says, “Herc, just take the stupid eggs with you, come on. See ya later, Ham.”

Aaron watches the three leave slowly, on the notes of a symphony of complaints, and only when they get out of the cafeteria he turns around to look at Alexander again, finding him pale and a little sweaty. “He knows,” the man says, “John knows. He’s gonna flay me alive for the details.”

“Then you’re gonna have to die a martyr,” Aaron frowns deeply, sitting down at the table and eating some bread from Hamilton’s plate, “If you tell them anything, I swear I’m gonna make your life a living hell, Alexander. You said you wouldn’t regret what we did, well, I’ll _make you_.”

Alexander swallows and sits down, groaning. “I’ll try my best,” he says, “You wanted to talk?”

“Well, _you_ said you wanted to talk. In that ridiculous note of yours. And, by the way, who do you even think you are, destroying my notebook for your tacky notes?”

“Who am I?” Alexander grins, “I am the man who’s gonna make you change your mind, sir.”

“I doubt it.”

“I don’t. You’ve already changed your mind, haven’t you? You wouldn’t be here, otherwise,” Alexander insists with a smug smile that legitimately makes Aaron wants to punch him in the face.

Instead of taking the bait, Aaron chooses to deflect. “You promised you wouldn’t speak of it,” he says, “You told me, in the library. You would never speak of what had happened with those boys and girls again.”

“Well, actually,” Alexander notes, petulantly raising his index finger, “Our agreement was devoid of any time and space context. I promised I wouldn’t speak of it, but up until when? For how long? That wasn’t specified. Even if we take for granted that our no-speaking-of-the-matter contract lasted for the duration of our date, when I wrote that note, it was 6 AM in the morning – well after our date had ended.”

Aaron glares at him, stealing another piece of bread from his plate for revenge. “Technicalities,” he says.

“Well, I am a lawyer, after all,” Alexander shrugs, but when Aaron scowls at him he softens down and chuckles, raising both arms in surrender, “Okay,” he offers, “Perhaps I just can’t keep my promises, then.”

 _Perhaps neither can I,_ Aaron thinks, cursing himself in silence as he feels something warm, wrong and dangerous spread throughout his whole body upon seeing that damned unbearable smile. He promised himself he would not fall for this. He fucking promised himself. And here he is, falling for it like an idiot.

“Tell me more about this thing you wanna do,” he hears himself say. He cannot believe he’s really saying it.

And as soon as he sees Alexander’s smile turn into a mischievous grin, he already regrets it.


End file.
